


Raze The Past

by Rhinocio



Series: Now We're Gonna Grow [2]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-20
Updated: 2020-02-20
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:14:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22820797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rhinocio/pseuds/Rhinocio
Summary: Minerva has spent her entire life following a preordained path. She's finally fulfilled the task she was Chosen for, and now finds herself alien to a new home and devoid of a plan for what to do next. To make matters worse, she can’t seem to distance herself from Duck Newton, despite the reasons for their original partnership removed. His company tugs at the fond parts of her heart in the same way a planet does its accessory moon.As someone familiar with astrophysics, Minerva probably should have realized such gravity only ever leads to collision.
Relationships: Jake Coolice & Minerva, Mama & Minerva (The Adventure Zone), Minerva & Leo Tarkesian, Minerva/Duck Newton, Sarah Drake & Minerva
Series: Now We're Gonna Grow [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1640548
Comments: 14
Kudos: 58





	Raze The Past

**Author's Note:**

> Back in November the [Ducknerva Discord](https://discord.gg/b55pvCQ) started psychoanalyzing Minerva and I realized I desperately wanted to show the mental processes that motivated her to canonically follow Duck to Brazil, so three months later, here we are. This oneshot runs parallel to the first chapter of [Seed The Future](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21459589/chapters/51140365), but can be read independently. As per usual, comments and critiques are always welcome and appreciated!

Minerva remains watching the spot where her friend had been sitting for a long while after he rises to leave the Amnesty Lodge. The newspaper he's handed her is still folded neatly in her hands, and she goes over the foreign script and images on it a few more times, as if under scrutiny the paper will give her purpose and direction in the same way it clearly had for her former student.

She hears the door click as Duck Newton disappears back into the dark like the phantom he once was, and Minerva is left for the billionth time to her thoughts and the quiet of a place that doesn’t quite feel like home.

To her benefit, though, the Lodge is not the graveyard that Five was – there are constant soft sounds of movement and conversation around her, padding the hard lines of the walls and protecting her aching heart from her overzealous brain. Minerva takes a seat in the same hardback chair Duck had been curled up in and throws the blanket he’d kept around his shoulders over her knees. She smoothes the strange texture – fur-like, but not from any animal – with her fingertips in repeated brushes, and takes a long moment to explore the room, absorbing the quiet snores of the two young creatures on the couch across the way (one Sylvan, one Earthling), and listening to the soft clinks of dishware moving as Madeline Cobb gathers together enough mugs to make hot cocoa for the residents. The newspaper glares up at her with harsh imagery when she unfurls it again, as though it’s trying to contrast to the atmosphere.

Burning trees. Minerva isn’t surprised that was the subject that had motivated Duck to move of his own accord, the quest that had finally called to his heart in the way her repeat pleas hadn’t ever. She amuses herself wondering if she should have threatened to arson the Monongahela in order to motivate him to accept his title as Chosen years ago, but the smile falters with the knowledge that such a gesture would have pushed him even farther away. Minerva counts herself lucky that the mess of the past had still brought them to a successful fulfillment of their long-foretold destiny, given how difficult her distance and his obstinance had made things. Luckier still that Duck Newton continues to speak to her, though their interactions are few and far between. Luckiest, perhaps, that she survived the entire ordeal and now has the luxury of living the remainder of her life in the appropriately-named Lodge. But therein lies the problem, of course – without a destiny to follow, prophesized since childhood and followed fervently throughout her life, Minerva has no idea what to do with herself.

Part of her is thrilled at the freedom, of course. Minerva has taken every opportunity to explore Earth and its unfamiliar customs and activities. The sport of snowboarding that Jake Coolice had been training her in is thrilling, and the company superb. Cooking over a device more powerful than a woodfire with foreign, fresh vegetables is a delight she won’t soon tire of, even if Barclay appears to be tiring of her intensive questioning on where the food comes from (but of course she has to wonder – the people of Kepler seem never to hunt their own meals, nor demand from their grocers where the produce has been grown). Moira, the kindly spirit masquerading as a living being, had even encouraged song back into Minerva’s voice. She was well out of practice and nervous of her own harmonies, but Moira had gently urged her to enjoy the music as a game instead of a performance. The product had been passable, after a few practice sessions, and Minerva wishes she could share it with the closest thing she has to family – her two Chosen, her two dearest friends.

But Leo has begun a new challenge, and taken on a new teacher. He intends to hone his unreliable prophetic powers into the articulate augury of a seer, and prevent calamities across the country. It is a noble path, and one she is delighted to see him pursue. He had rushed to tell her, when first the sylph Indrid Cold had approached him with the offer – of course, all three of them had foreseen the interaction, and knew the most likely result. Minerva had swept Leo into a hug and acted surprised regardless, wishing him nothing but good fortune and fair travels. She suspects he’ll be leaving as soon as the winter weather ebbs, in the battered vehicle Indrid has gifted him (once he feels it is clean enough).

Duck, on the other hand… Minerva is more than surprised at his sudden decision, at the fervency with which he’d looked upon this situation in a forest far away and declared that he wanted to do something about it. There was a glint of passion in his eyes as he declined her questions and stared into the flickering embers of the hearth; he may have tried to deny his interest, but Duck Newton has always been a terrible liar. Even his expression held the truth out, bright and burning as the fire. Though Minerva’s heart ached at the idea that he, too, the man who had always so craved routine and simplicity and his small town home, would pick up and leave her behind, she didn’t dare stop him. 

“Wayne,” she had prompted, determined to keep the longing for his company out of her voice, “The effort would be delighted to have you. Who must you contact to join them?”

Minerva sighs, untangling her fingers from the blanket she’s been strangling and flattening the newspaper back out. Stillness is a greater danger to her than any confessions she might make on the subject, so she unravels herself from the chair and begins a search for the resident ghost, hoping that perhaps her guidance might again create harmony in the yawning chasm of Minerva’s chest.

Moira waves her over like a friend, with a bright flash of a smile and a space open at her side. If she had not already inquired about it, Minerva might have expected the spirit possessed some sort of augury abilities herself – the moment she sits down, Moira prompts, “Something’s bothering you.”

“Would you read this to me?” 

“The whole newspaper?”

“No, this– the article with the burning trees,” Minerva says, folding her legs up and running her finger down the page to highlight the beginning and ending. She wants desperately to understand what about the story has so grasped Duck that he would pack up and leave, and how best she can guide him, even if his intentions leave her behind. She may no longer be his teacher, but he is still dear to her, and deserves whatever repayment for his company and success she can manage.

If Moira thinks anything of Minerva’s focus on the subject, she says nothing of it. The article names places and people Minerva knows nothing about, and references past occurrences she has to inquire to understand. But the story is clear enough – for economic gain, and against the will of the people, destruction of a great level is being imposed upon a delicate and wondrous place. The location is dangerous, and the situation complicated, but the organizations that have come together to reconstruct in the aftermath are determined, and Duck wants to count himself among their ranks. Minerva has seldom been so proud of him. She peers over the image of the forest from above Moira’s shoulder and for a quick moment allows herself to wonder if she too could join the resistance.

Moira folds the paper back over with a snap, and the sound cracks through the concept and shatters it as quickly as it had formed. The ghost hands it back with a curious look, and Minerva schools herself back into stoicism.

Curiousity happens to be a hell of a beast, though, and before the evening is out Minerva has cornered Mama in her office, a placating mug of coffee in hand. She understands the imposing woman to be leader of this establishment, and Minerva has met few other humans who carry themselves with the kind of strength and grace that she expects of a ruler. Mama has repeatedly tried to correct her actions, because hierarchy on Earth clearly doesn’t work in the same way it did in the Atraxin temples, but Minerva cannot help symbolising her deference when she feels she is making herself a nuisance.

“What can I do for you?” Mama asks. She pulls out a chair and clears it of old books, gesturing for Minerva to sit, turning a tired smile towards her as she takes a long drink of the brew. She’s appeared better in recent months than when they were first introduced, and though her sleep schedule is erratic her posture has improved without the weight of obligation upon it. Minerva can relate.

“I am unfamiliar with the geography of Earth, Madeline Cobb, and wished to have an example given of–”

“You wonderin’ where Duck’s goin’, hon?”

The rest of the sentence stumbles and sputters out between her lips as Minerva ducks her head and tries not to blush under the searing gaze of the woman in charge. It’s been so very long since she felt like a foolish student being scolded by an elder, and if she weren’t so embarrassed perhaps the sensation would be nostalgic. She wrangles her composure and lifts her chin to meet Mama’s eyes again, nodding once. 

“I understand the forests in danger are far from here,” she prompts, and Mama hums a confirming noise, already leaning over the far arm of her chair to fish for something in a low drawer. She rises to splay out a long pamphlet that folds into wider and wider pieces, and stands to properly smooth out the stubborn creases of a world map. Minerva moves closer, scouring the layout of the planet’s terrain as if it means anything to her. She squints and desperately searches for Kepler; Mama’s finger rests well on the opposite side of the landmass when she starts to explain.

“So we’re over here, alright,” she says, circling a small area just off the coast, and then moves far, far south, into the second large lump of land, one that looks a bit like a misshapen pizza slice. Minerva’s stomach sinks as she circles a much greater set of lines. “I dunno where exactly all this reforestation stuff is poppin’ off, but most of the Amazon goes through this big country called Brazil. It’s, I dunno, a couple thousand miles from here.”

“That is… a long way to travel,” Minerva manages, glancing at the key in the corner of the map and trying to visually mark the distance between the two points. By land, such a distance could take weeks to transverse, even given the vehicles this planet has.

“Couple hours by plane, yeah,” Mama shrugs, and she must catch something about Minerva’s body language brightening, because she adds, “Not a cheap way to get around.”

The information is “strike two”, as Leo Tarkesian might have put it, against the part of her that wants to follow Duck into the unknown like she had followed him persistently throughout his life. Mama offers her the map and Minerva takes it against her better judgement, pinning it up on the wall across from her bed in the lodge room she’s been granted. She stares at it when sleep eludes her, letting the image of the two continents slide closer in her unfocused vision and willing the silver moonlight searing across them to fuse the two together.

Minerva has rarely skipped out on training. She has been habitually primed to treat every waking hour as an opportunity to keep her body in peak physical condition, so the erratic pounding of her heartbeat when she jogs down to the crossroads at the bottom of the mountain the following day is startling. Her breath comes faintly as she hauls it into her lungs, thrown off by the uneven tempo. She’s arrived too early, but Minerva folds her arms and watches the street opposite the one she came down with vigilance. She’s begun to feel grounded by the time Duck finally skateboards down to her, weaving around invisible targets; the startled acknowledgement and swift smile he gives her, though, seems to undo the calm. 

They travel down to the Cryptonomia at the edge of town together, periodically racing each other; Duck’s skateboard gives him a smoother descent, but spares him the mobility her feet allow her – Minerva smugly jumps over a stack of wood someone left out for garbage day, and turns back to crow her victory just in time to see Duck hop the same obstacle with a graceful flip of his board. He smirks at her as he skids past, and the now thunderous drumming in Minerva’s chest speeds up.

She hovers, watching, as Duck greets the current shop owner and settles himself into the back room of the Cryptonomica, taking in each fidgeting gesture as he waits for his computer to boot up and committing each exasperated sigh and grumble to memory. He awkwardly types in the address to a website with two fingers, and then skims through several pages of information and slowly writes out an email. His interest in the calling grows faint under the struggle of communication, and Minerva has to nudge him back into working several times. 

“Email’s probably gonna get lost anyway,” he sighs, flicking the corner of one of the papers by his side, slouched back in his chair and avoiding eye contact. Duck chews his lip, and quietly asks, “Minerva, what the fuck am I doing?”

“Following the path of your new quest,” she suggests, bouncing against the edge of the desk. 

“Don’t call it that.”

“Pursuing a passion, then.” 

Duck rubs a hand over the stubble that frames his jaw and then the bridge of his nose, grumbling, “Goin’ to fuckin’... South America, though? I dunno, it sounded good yesterday but I–” 

“What do you have here that you cannot be without?” she prods, whirling on him. Minerva has always been a forward-thinker, saved from her own anguish only because of her determination to keep moving into the future instead of wistfully pining for the past. Duck’s apathy has always been exasperating, but she wishes more than anything that he’d commit to his choices, and cease his waffling in front of her. Duck’s lips open a close a few times, and Minerva determinedly shuts out the voice in the back of her head that desperately wants him to say, 'you'.

Duck sighs instead, defeated and long, and admits, "Nothin', I guess. Kepler hasn't changed in thirty years, probably isn't gonna."

He speaks of its general environment and not the avalanche of events the gate to Sylvain caused, Minerva has to assume, and snorts at his simplification. The shift would have been alarming to any other reasonable being, but Duck is equable in a way that others simply cannot be. He has made it this far in life by following the forward path of fate no matter how torrential the current, and the method seems to have worked well for him. Minerva wonders if perhaps her constant fight against the flow is working to her detriment, wearing away at her roots as if she were an obstinate tree growing in a riverbed. She debates whether she too should let the course of events do what they will, and trust the current to lead her. 

She fears the flow would take her into another desolate, lonely future, though, and finds herself unwilling to budge.

Minerva whittles away the months she has left with Duck’s company studying up on his quest, instead, firmly sticking with her role as a mentor to him. Moira reads to her from the old encyclopedias she finds in the Lodge’s storage room, though advises her the information is likely out of date. Minerva sits with Jake Coolice and watches the news until she knows every repeat clip of the burning trees by heart, and has scalded the imagery into the deepest recesses of her brain. He explains the multiple remotes to her several times, but Minerva honestly can’t keep them organized. She huddles up against his side with a steeping mug of cocoa and frowns at the newscasters as they switch topic, and he glances at her from under his overgrown carpet of white hair.

“This stuff really bugs you, huh?” 

“It is a tragedy,” Minerva grumbles. “Such intricate biology torn down for singular crops and livestock ill-suited to the terrain. I cannot make sense of it.”

“I mean, that’s… pretty par for the course with humans,” Jake shrugs, and when Minerva scrunches her brows at him, clarifies, “Means ‘something they usually do’. Unless the government makes the thing a protected area like the Monongahela, eventually somebody comes by and sets up, like, an oil rig or a logging operation or builds an ugly skyscraper and parking lot where there used to be cool trees and animals’ homes and stuff.”

“Skyscraper?” 

“They’re big, uh– these things.” He rises to gesture at the screen, tracing the moving shapes of tall structures made of glass, crowded together and rising into the atmosphere. Minerva recognises them, though the arial view the news station has given them of New York’s topography is disorienting when she’s used to the underground and narrow streets of the city – Leo Tarkesian had not focused on showing her the sights nearly as much as Duck had, though she suspects that’s because Leo was too busy fighting monsters and teaching her English to entertain astral visits to the top of the Empire State Building. “Sometimes people live in them, but they’re usually offices, I think?”

“Kepler has none of these structures.”

“Nah, there’s not enough people here to bother makin’ em. I think if any of the water parks had taken off then we might’ve gotten some. Y’know, make a tourist industry for the summer to match the skiing in the winter.” He flips the remote in circles in his hands, nails flicking over the buttons and testing the limits of their rubber flex. “I’m glad, though, ‘cause if we started gettin’ that many people around here it’d probably be just a matter of time before the forest got torn up.”

“Why is this the way of things, Jake Coolice?” Minerva has to ask, rubbing at the rim of her mug. “Is it so commonplace to destroy great sections of this planet, without heed for its natural state?”

“That’s how we got into this global warming mess, so yeah, seems like.” The baffled look Minerva sends his way has Jake startled. He whirls to face her, extending and refolding his legs and leaning over his raised knees. “There’s no way you haven’t heard about this, Big M. Earth’s goose is gettin’ cooked! Like, literally! I guess we didn’t talk about it a lot here ‘cause Sylvain was in harder shape, but the– the weather’s changin’ and animals are goin’ extinct and everything’s getting messed up ‘cause of all the cars and big buildings and stuff.”

The warm mug in her hands might as well be a block of ice in Minerva’s frozen grip. She examines Jake’s face for signs of jest, but finds him serious, and knows him to be nearly as inept at lying as Duck Newton is. The sylph laughs, short and disbelieving. 

“Guess you missed that memo, huh?”

“What is being done about this?” Minerva demands, bolting upright and setting her drink on the table when she realizes she’s cracked the pottery. Her blanket falls in a heap at her feet, and she stares down the screen as the clips switch to those of large trucks hauling dirt and machinery digging into the earth. Rage bubbles up in her chest, tinged with exhaustion, and she clenches her firsts at the display, ready to confront the nearest villain of this war against her new planet. She had waited too long to act when destruction came upon Miraliviniax Orbital Body Five, and does not intend to make the same mistake twice. “What name has been given to the assailants? Who opposes them?”

“Um,” Jake says quietly, and balks when she turns towards him, “I guess that’s what Duck’s doing?”

“He would see the entire mechanism of this global destruction taken down?” she fumes, pride and confusion bubbling up to mix with the soup of emotion in her chest. “This mission he’s taking on will combat the warming of the world?”

“I guess so? It’s not gonna fix the whole thing, that’s, uh–” Jake scratches his head, scooting backwards even as Minerva’s rage begins to cool. “Do you know how big the Earth is, Min?”

She peers down at him with narrowed eyes, reining back her fury when he leans away a little farther; she has reason to believe the young sylph has been treated unkindly in the past, given his nervousness with conflict, and has no desire to add to the trauma. Minerva takes a deep, slow inhale through her nose and sits back down, rubbing her knees restlessly.

“What have I not understood, Jake Coolice?” she asks, quieting her voice as best she can. He gives her an assessing once over and unwinds, though his fingers still fidget with the bright fabric of his pants. He glances around the room and then points at the corkboard near the entrance to the Lodge, where a world map, yellowed with age, is peppers with colourful pushpins. A handwritten header asks, “Where Are You From?” and encourages guests to identify the distance they’ve travelled to Kepler.

“So, uh, the rainforest is like, way far from here,” Jake begins, fumbling over his point, “And it’s only one place where stuff’s really bad? It’s not just here and South America where, um, where the weather’s changing and trees are getting cut down. It’s, like, the whole world. And there are– I dunno how big your planet was, but I don’t think Sylvain has even close to as many people on it as Earth does. There’s _billions_ , man. Billions and billions of humans that’re wreckin’ stuff and messing their planet up.”

Minerva’s heart stutters in her chest. She gapes at the boy beside her.

“It’s not everybody, I don’t think,” Jake adds, tugging his knees to his chest and rocking. “And there’s folks like Duck goin’ out and doing stuff to help, y’know? But it’s really frustrating. I guess humans can’t, like, feel their planet? It doesn’t talk to them like Sylvain does to us, they don’t have an Interpreter. So maybe they don’t realize… I dunno, they know they’re ruining it, but not enough of them are laying off.”

“So what… will become of the Earth?” Minerva asks slowly, glancing at the television and its repeating clips of the skyline of New York, a crowded city made of metal and glass, devoid of greenery. From a vantage point so high up, the humans that walk its streets are invisible, and in a way the scene looks as desolate as Five was, when she was the last resident – a monument to a society that had brought itself to ruin.

“I guess either people start fixing it or it… or it all goes to shit, huh?”

The idea haunts her. Minerva stews on the conversation for weeks afterward, and her studies on the culture of the Earth expand; she frequently sits on an uncomfortable wooden stool in Madeline Cobb’s woodworking shop, flipping through library books on the environmental state of the planet. The lodge owner is a comforting presence, despite the violent way her craft tears at the impressive girth of old trees to turn them into no-less-impressive sculptures. Minerva scuffs a foot through the sawdust and glances out the window, checking constantly for signs of the only expert on the subject she knows. Duck Newton remains a ghost, though, rarely seen and vivid only in her memory.

She isn’t sure what to think, therefore, when she curls up against the rim of a shallow hot spring behind the Lodge, head pillowed in her arms and easing into unconsciousness, and hears Duck calling for her.

He’s new to being a Herald of the Astral Mind, and has seldom tried to use the abilities his title now allows him, nor asked her to teach him. Minerva has let the topic be, because she’s certain he’s more than tired of her imposing upon him, and hopes he’ll express interest on his own. She heeds the call and sinks into the experience of projection, extending the energy in her body out and towards the vibration that marks him as himself. Duck is looking the wrong way when she manifests, knelt on the floor of a small room, surrounded by paper and hanging clothes. Minerva peers around the space curiously, identifies it as a closet, and smiles at the features that mark it as his – the pile of workboots, the ranger’s hat decorated with feathers and pins hanging off a hook on the shelf, the mismatched, colourful socks he hides under plain pants, that peek out only when he sits. 

“Duck Newton,” she says eventually, and cannot help the (perhaps nostalgic) warmth that fills her as their eyes meet and Duck looks her over, already tripping on his own tongue. He does a nervous sweep of the chaos surrounding him, and must decide it’s inconsequential or believe it to be something she cannot see; the idea of the latter amuses Minerva so much that she has to press her lips into her arms to hide her grin. 

She teases him for his accidental summons, humours his small talk, and then has to ask, “Have you heard any news concerning your enlistment to the saving of the burning trees?” 

Duck tries to lie. He covers the letter of acceptance the volunteer group sent him with a hand, looks away from her, and struggles to excuse himself from the interrogation. Given his commitment to the quest, Minerva can only assume he is uncomfortable sharing his success with her because he fears she will follow him. She swallows the twinge of upset in her ribs and wills the hot spring water around her to boil it away, matching Duck’s nervousness with enthusiasm instead of disrespect.

“That is wonderful news, Wayne Newton! Tell me, what must you study before you depart? You must train your body for the trials of physical endurance that smothering forest fires will demand, I imagine.” She will support his choices just as she had those of Leo Tarkesian when he decided he was going to leave town, just as she had when her dearest friend on Five had left with a platoon doomed to die. Minerva has been alone before, and will survive again – this is not about her.

Wayne Newton has always been difficult to predict, and his reaction throws her for a loop. His pleased smile fades as he folds and re-folds the letter in his hands, and there’s something tight in his expression when he suddenly looks at her and asks, “Hey, are you– you’re happy, yeah? In general. Like, you– you’re happy?”

“Duck Newton, I am content,” she lies, as gently as she can manage. Her heart aches. 

Minerva cuts the connection between them the moment the sentence leaves her mouth, and heaves herself out of the hot spring in a rush. She strides to the lodge in bare feet, leaving steaming footprints in the snow behind her. The quick burst of a shower she takes in the communal bathing room is just enough to wash away the worst of the sulfuric smell clinging to her skin, and Minerva shucks on a long, loose dress that once belonged to Mama, similar to the long tunics she wore as a child on Five. She races to her designated room at the far end of the Lodge as if she’s on the run from a great predator, but the teeth at her heels are imagined, and made of the strange warble in Duck Newton’s voice, asking how happy she is.

Minerva shoves the door closed behind her, takes a moment to suck air through her nose to compose herself, and then reaches out for the energy of her oldest living friend.

“You want some tea?” Leo asks too quickly, already responding to her arrival before she’s fully manifested in his apartment, as is the burden of experiencing the world as a Seer does. He shakes his head and grins at her, correcting, “Wait, sorry– hey, Minerva. Good to see you. Want some tea?”

Even the longstanding joke doesn’t pierce through Minerva’s anxiety; she paces a tight circle at the foot of her bed, and Leo watches her curiously as her spectral form does the same thing in the middle of his living room. She must have caught him packing, as there are cardboard boxes at their feet she keeps phasing through and he’s holding a strange array of items with no clear correlation to each other. He sets them one by one onto the dining table as Minerva gathers her thoughts.

“Leo Tarkesian, I must– I wish to ask a favour of you,” she says finally, and embarrassment has her resolutely turned away from his gaze. Leo has seen her more vulnerable than any other of her alien companions, given their long history, but it’s still difficult to shake off the strong face of the teacher she had been and leave her emotions open for inspection. “You have… the ability to much clearer prospects of the coming events than my occasional visions allow, and I– I am searching for a solution, Leo Tarkesian, I–”

“You want me to look into the future and tell you what you’re supposed to do with your life now that your quest for destiny is over,” Leo snorts. He clatters around the kitchen, pulling two mugs from a box but filling only one with boiling water – a ceremonial consideration of her company – and flicks a smile at her from over his shoulder. “Believe it or not, Minerva, you aren’t the first person to ask me.”

“I… no, I suppose I’m not,” Minerva sighs. “I’m certain you understand my motivations, though.”

Leo leans against the countertop and looks at her then, in the casual sort of way he did when they were both much younger, new to and exasperated with each other. There’s fondness in the wrinkles around his eyes, though, and despite her spectral form he seems to acknowledge the silent plea she’s making to humour her. 

“What’s got your jimmies rustled?” he asks, and despite the unfamiliar idiom Minerva recognizes the prompt, and has to brace herself against a wave of nervousness. War Councillor Minerva, once stoic and proud before even the most intimidating of beasts and clever of political opponents, shies away from the patient watch of her one time student. She chews her tongue and considers how best to phrase her dilemma. The cardboard boxes across the room catch her wandering eyes, reminding her suddenly that her time with Leo is perhaps even more limited than with Duck, and the words tumble from her lips like torrential rain. 

“I am concerned about where I am most needed, or most– most useful, Leo. There is no great repair left to do in the town of Kepler, and I have been given no further challenges by the matriarch of the Amnesty Lodge.” Minerva begins pacing again, too distressed to be still. “Doctor Sarah Drake has returned to her career at the Green Bank Telescope, and has expressed interest in battle training only on weekends, which I do not hold against her, of course, she is a bright student and there are no enemies to face that require the discipline of an everyday routine. And you, dear friend, you have taken on a new responsibility and will soon depart here for new parts of this large world, and Duck Newton is– he is travelling to– he will leave in the spring, Leo Tarkesian, on a quest to reverse the damage done in the Amazon Rainforest. There are burning trees there, expanses of forest destroyed for the sake of– I am not sure the _purpose_ , truly, I cannot see why it is being done, it isn’t logical–”

“Minerva.”

“Duck Newton will enter the fray of this– this global battle for the fate of the world, and I will be too far away to aid him. I do not think he _wants_ my help, regardless, but I– perhaps I have been spoiled by your physical company, but–” Minerva flexes her fingers repeatedly, as if she can catch the torrent of baffled words and make sense of them in her hands. “I am not certain what purpose I have left to serve, otherwi–”

“I’m gonna stop you there,” Leo says suddenly, and Minerva startles at his proximity. If she were tangibly present, he would likely have grabbed her arms to make her still; as-is, she nearly phases right through him, and the disorientation does a similar job. He sighs. “Listen, do you– do y’need me to stick around?”

Minerva inhales sharply, blanching.

“No, Leo Tarkesian, I– I would not ask that of you,” she says, though they both know she would, and has, demanded similar in the past. She nearly shrinks in on herself, hating what motivations had pushed her to so uproot his life and his assumptions that she would so easily take more from him. “I am delighted that you have found a new purpose, and I will not ask you to leave it for my– for me.”

“Then what solution are you looking for, Minerva? You’re all worked up about what everybody else is doing – maybe you just gotta get, I dunno, a hobby or something. You gotta–” He shifts back and gives her a once-over, as if he can glean something from looking her silhouette over. “You have to make your own happiness, okay? Not everything’s gonna drop itself in front of you, destined to exist.”

She stands silently for a moment, feeling as small as she had her first days as a student of the Order. 

“And have you seen a future where that is enough?” she asks quietly.

“I don’t need to,” the seer shrugs, and collects his objects one by one again. “It’s something you gotta work at perpetually, Minerva. There’s no hard happily ever after, there’s just more and more moments of good shit that you reach for and savour until you’re old and grey. You’re good at finding solutions, alright? You’ll figure it out.” He flashes her smile. “And you can always call me, okay?”

“So you can refuse me more visions?”

“Got it in one. Hey, actually,” Leo lifts a finger, “I do have a quest for you, if you’re not busy tomorrow? Could use a hand getting this stuff into the Winnebago.”

A faint laugh slips out between Minerva’s teeth. Leo has always known how to talk her down from frantic thought, and build her back up with humor. She nods, conceding, “I’ll be there.”

And she is. Minerva is determined to prove herself to her longtime friend as supportive, and repentant for her past sins. She’s there too early, in fact, and spends a long while leaning against the side of the apartment building Leo and Duck both live in, arms folded and breath coming in clouds in front of her face. Watching the mist rise is nearly entertainment enough to keep her occupied, as Five had never been so cold as to make the experience possible, but Minerva also finds herself flicking icicles off the perimeter of the building, reaching up towards the eves and gently tapping each one until it crashes to a pile in the snow at her feet. The rising sunlight shines off their facets and makes crystal of their broken fragments.

A door opens behind her, and Minerva falters back as a familiar body in park ranger garb strolls out into the quiet landscape, hissing at the change in temperature. Duck lifts his face towards the sun, and glows under its touch. His pale skin goes rosy in the cold, and his hair auburn in its light. The soft smile that twitches at the corners of his mouth as he huffs out a breath and scrubs his hands together seems to welcome the world, and as he tosses his skateboard to the ground and clatters away upon it, the entire street seems to wake up and welcome him back. Minerva realizes, as she watches him disappear around the bend and the rapid heartbeat in her chest slows, that she’s holding her breath.

She rounds the side of the apartment complex, counting minutes with icicles, and finds the large mobile home that Indrid Cold once owned parked awkwardly behind the building. It has seen better days, Minerva is sure, given the discolouration to the name on its side and the tears in the mesh of its screen door, but there seem to be no large damages to the vessel. She marches around it with her arms tucked behind her back as if she’s once again the leader of a war front admiring her troops, and stands on tiptoes to peer in the windows at its dark interior.

A door clunks open behind her, and Minerva turns. Leo gives her an exasperated look from the doorway, leaning out enough that his grey housecoat skims the frost on the doorstep. There’s a square container of ‘oat milk’ in his hand.

“I didn’t mean dawn-early, Minerva,” he snorts, waving her in. “You want coffee?”

They settle for breakfast together, though Minerva has already eaten. The company alone is a comfort; Leo’s knees knock against hers at his small kitchen table, and he flips his television – thin and sleek, so different from the heavy machine in his New York apartment fifty years ago – onto a familiar channel, smirking at her. He makes food for the both of them, a shared plate with two forks, and gives Minerva a delicate bronze cup of tea that shimmers like the warmer sister to the icicles outside. They pick at his ‘tofu scramble’ and roasted vegetables quietly, and the brightly-coloured creatures on the television talk about the letter B. It is a nostalgic scene, forgiving her actual presence in the room, and Minerva sinks into the moment as if it were a hot spring at the Lodge, warm with delight. 

Doctor Sarah Drake shows up a short while later, and joins them with her own cup of coffee. (Minerva will never understand human fascination with the beverage – it tastes like charcoal.) For a while it seems perhaps the idea of moving anything into Leo’s new home was a coverup excuse to simply have company over; Minerva is loathe to break the spell, but curiousity gets the better of her.

“Do we not have work to do, Leo?” she asks, twisting her cup back and forth to watch it shine, and he groans melodramatically.

It is not a great effort to collect Leo’s belongings and move them into the trailer, especially with how neatly he’s organized the boxes and balanced them for weight and by content. Between the three of them, there are only a few trips through the apartment to the cold outdoors they have to make. Minerva does most of the carrying, because the boxes are hardly an effort; Leo hauls them into his trailer to best keep them organized, and Sarah keeps the back door open, occasionally skimming contents from Minerva’s arms. The apartment is near-barren by the time they’re finished, excepting the dishes in the sink, which Minerva makes quick work of (she’s become very efficient at washing, after helping Barclay in the kitchen so frequently). Leo’s hand touches her back just as she sets a large frying pan into the rack to dry.

“Oh now there’s some service,” he says, nodding towards her work. “You feel like tagging along and being a busboy for the trip?” 

Minerva understands that there is no actual offer under the teasing, nor had she considered following her former student on his new adventures. She will miss Leo, but she owes him the space to do as he wishes without attending to her. She smiles, and replies, “Leo Tarkesian, I am far too large for the confines of your trailer. Also, you snore.”

He laughs at that, and to her great surprise, pulls her in for a hug. He is thinner now than he was in his youth, his muscles drawn down with time, but the grip of his hands is strong, and he folds her up in his arms with a certainty she has always admired. Minerva stoops to hold him back, pressing her temple to his. The contact is like standing too close to an otherwise comforting fire; Minerva sucks in a loud, shaky breath, and Leo exhales a soft, resigned one.

“I’m gonna miss you, girl,” he murmurs.

“And I you. May your travels be safe and fortunate, _Ironwill._ ” The blessing doesn’t have the same effect when spoken outside its native language, but Minerva wants to be sure he understands the sentiment. She squeezes him once more, perhaps too tightly. 

“Well as far as I can See–” Leo starts, but goes stiff suddenly in her arms. Minerva leans back and holds him steady; he stares into an indeterminate distance, past her chest and unfocused, his eyes trembling in their sockets. She tries not to squeeze his arms too tightly, but cannot brush off the tension until he finally heaves in a breath and reanimates. He rubs a hand over his face, and the fingertips are shaking. Minerva gathers them in her palm.

Leo turns, leaning over his shoulder just as Sarah turns the corner, reworking her ponytail, and says, “They found the thing you were looking for at work.”

Minerva had thought the English idiom of a person ‘lighting up’ had been a bit hard to imagine when first she heard it, but Sarah Drake brings life into the concept – her blue eyes go wide, and colour springs to her cheeks as a wide grin blooms across her face. She and Duck are of similar stature in many ways, but she’s much lighter on her feet, and the information has her springing onto her toes. She rushes forward and starts patting Leo’s shoulder excitedly.

“They actually found it?”

“Couldn’t See in perfect detail, but they’ve got images for you, yeah. Young guy got them all compiled for you, probably. Might’ve been the lady with the curls.”

“But they’re there either way? Right now?”

Leo squints one eye thoughtfully, and shrugs, “Looked like same time of day?”

If not for her greater strength Minerva might have stumbled when Sarah reaches for her arm and tugs her towards the door. Leo laughs and pushes her along, and their dual encouragement has her baffled, but compliant. She peers at Sarah as she shucks her large flannel jacket back on (an old vestment of Madeline Cobb’s, which still smells faintly of sawdust), and Sarah seems to read the confusion in her expression, but gives her only a smile and a plea to, “Trust me, I wanna show you something.”

They drive up to the Green Bank Telescope in Sarah’s small car, which Minerva was told the name of once but hardly found important to remember. It’s low to the ground and has a ceiling that brushes her head, and those are the two features Minerva is most aware of. It’s a task maneuvering into the passenger’s seat, even adjusted as far back as it will go; Sarah allows her to open the window for the drive, to take the edge off the claustrophobic nature of the transport. The weaving path up the hill is peaceful, accented only by the whipping wind and Sarah’s soft singing along with the music she’s plugged in. Minerva is still growing accustomed to the ballads of Earth, but finds a special sort of amusement in the raucous drumming and playful electric guitar in her newest Chosen’s playlist – it reminds her a bit of the radio broadcast that allowed her to discover Earth in the first place, if it were played at twice the speed. 

They park in an area designated for employees and Sarah leads her into the large building beside the Telescope where its images are transmitted, surprising the young man currently wearing a lab coat and hunched over the monitors that line the room. He nearly knocks over his coffee over when she rushes up behind him and starts rooting around the desk; she takes hold of the computer terminal and starts shuffling through lines of data. 

“Hit me with those Andromeda satellite photos, Jim, I know you’ve got them,” she says feverishly, and the intern gapes, pausing in the wiping of his shirt.

“But I just– I was gonna leave you a voicemail? They only just finished loading.”

“Sensed a disturbance in the Force,” Sarah shrugs, clicking through a few more icons on one of several computer screens and hip-checking the intern’s chair to the side. “Scoot, I’ve got an expert here I want to look at these.” Minerva curiously follows the waving hand closer to the desk. Jim rolls his chair away from Minerva’s imposing figure and leaves the room, still blotting at his lab coat, in the direction of a fluorescently-lit side room she has to assume is the kitchen. Running water suggests the same. Sarah grips her arm and squeezes excitedly.

“Okay, so we don’t– it’s not gonna be the clearest image, we’re working with radio waves and technology that’s probably way behind what you’re used to–” Minerva snorts. “–but I remember where you had me point the telescope back when Duck warped you here, and I got thinking that maybe you’d like a piece of home, so–”

Sarah points at the screen with a shaking hand, her enthusiasm barely suppressed. The monochrome image of a black expanse and varying spots of white light glimmer under her touch, and she circles a larger dot on the far right. 

“That’s Andromeda X, one of the satellites to Earth’s closest sister galaxy,” she explains. “It’s too far for us to get a really good photo of, something like three million lightyears, but you said your planet orbited a dwarf star, yeah?”

“Yes,” Minerva replies softly, as her stomach slowly sinks down into her feet.

“Then this–” Sarah gestures to a single pixel within the white, and another a bare shade brighter than the rest of the black universe, “–this is probably your sun, and the little speck here, that’s some kind of planetoid blocking out the light in the area, that’s why we can see it. How many planets were in your solar system, Minerva? Do you know? I mean I’m just excited to have an idea of what’s out there from someone who’s been there, but I thought you’d like to see home, even if it’s just a shitty photo.” 

She grins, grabbing the mouse to try and zoom in on the galaxy, and Minerva faintly supplies, “Five was a moon. The larger… this greater planet is probably Miralivinia, and there… there is another star near it, we had two...” 

“Minerva? Are you okay?”

The silence reverberates in the open room, and Minerva realizes then that she has stopped speaking. The memories of Five she had started sharing curl up on her tongue like flakes of ash, dry with age and guilt. Minerva had taken only her sword and armour with her when she’d left the planet, sung a final mourning hymn as she’d set up the wormhole passage to Earth, and had yet to look back. She had buried her belonging to Five alongside its citizens. The image might be a facsimile of the true scale of her solar system, may not be able to capture the eight orbiting moons of Miralivinia or the blinding light of its two suns; its monochrome does not show the red sand dunes of her birth planet or the wreckage of its civilization. But it is there, still, an abandoned shell that was once all she knew, and Minerva swallows a thickness in her throat as she stares it down.

It is not home. It has not been since she first met Leo Tarkesian, some fifty Earth years ago.

A hand carefully touches her arm, and Minerva inhales sharply at the sensation. Sarah, to her credit, doesn’t flinch.

“So this was a bad idea,” she says apologetically, and taps a button on the monitor to blacken the screen. “I’m sorry, Minerva, I wasn’t thinking. You wanna talk about it?” 

“I appreciate the sentiment,” Minerva offers shakily.

“Look, um– c’mon, there’s shitty coffee in the break room and it’ll be something else to focus on.” Sarah takes her hand, and Minerva is so startled by the casual gesture of affection that she follows the gentle tugging automatically. The ghosts of her dead planet follow her out of the room, hissing their disapproval of the contact; Minerva impulsively tightens her grip, and relief banishes the angry specters when Sarah squeezes back. 

“We’re done with the computers, back to work,” Sarah tells the intern, who’s involved himself with a magazine and is leaning on the counter with a mug of hot liquid beside him. He gives her a sardonic smile and wanders out of the room, leaving a necessary few more feet of space in the tiny kitchen for the two of them to maneuver in. Sarah waves Minerva towards a round table flanked by blue and orange plastic chairs, and begins digging through the cupboards.

“I haven’t ever really left here, y’know. I mean I got my degree the next state over, but I haven’t travelled far or gone anywhere really wild to expand my worldview or whatever.” She sets down two mugs and flicks a switch on the electric kettle to boil water; Minerva is amused to discover it lights up. “So I didn’t… I’m sorry, Minerva, I wasn’t thinking about makin’ you homesick with the pictures.”

“If you don't consider yourself worldly, I suppose you are not the scientist that I should ask about the Amazon, then.” The abrupt change of topic sends Sarah’s eyebrows folding towards each other, but she seems to take it as a distractive choice of topic, and she joins Minerva at the table. She pushes a hot mug of coffee towards her, and though Minerva resists the urge to wrinkle her nose at the smell, she hugs the vessel between her hands – the heat is a familiar comfort, having been her sole source when she was the only living person for millions of lightyears.

“The shipping company?”

“The expanse of trees in South America.”

“Oh. Well I haven’t been there, no, but I’ve read a lot of Nat Geos and seen a lot of documentaries on the weird birds and shit they got there. Is that the kinda thing you’re wondering about?” 

“I have seen only what has been on the news,” Minerva explains, tracing the sweeping design on her mug, “And the only intelligence I have on the subject is that it is far from here, and on fire.”

Sarah laughs and takes a loud slurp of her drink. She tilts her head side to side in the same way Minerva has seen Duck’s feline companion do, as if she’s stirring an answer up in her head, then says, “Well, you ain’t wrong. It’s on a whole different continent. Spans a couple different countries, and there’s a big kerfuffle about environmental protection going on ‘cause the government they’ve got currently is more conservative than… well.” She takes a surly gulp of her coffee and rests her chin on her hand. “There’s been a lot of people tryin’ to get out of there in recent years, I think, ‘cause they’ve got drug cartels and gangs terrorizin’ the more urban areas. Don’t think that’d translate into the woods all too much, but it’s not the safest place to be.”

Minerva startles as her glass makes a porcelain cracking sound, and loosens her grip. Sarah looks her up and down, and asks, “You alright?” as Minerva rises to set her leaking mug in the sink. The coffee slowly seeps out of it, as her composure does the tight lid she’s been keeping on it. 

“Duck Newton will have to be sufficiently armed before he goes, then. What weaponry would you suggest, Doctor Sarah Drake?”

“I mean, he can’t take a sword on a plane, and they probably aren’t gonna let him carry a firearm.” Sarah is wincing at her from where she’s turned around in her plastic chair. “But I– I don’t think you have to worry, Minerva, he’s goin’ down with some volunteer group, right? They aren’t gonna bring foreigners into super dangerous territory. I don’t think you gotta worry about ol’ Duck.”

“Of course I worry, I–” Minerva closes her eyes as the words fail her. There is no way to make Sarah Drake understand how greatly the idea frightens her; even bonded as they are, Sarah is little more than an acquaintance, and Minerva cannot explain the deep attachment she has to the two Chosen before her. There is no more desperate bond than between a lonely woman and her only friend, who Leo had for the longest time been. If asked to argue why she would so fervently want to stay by the side of someone who pushed her away for years, whose attention she had to fight for, Minerva would point out that Duck had forgiven her her sins and welcomed her into his life like it were the most natural choice in the world, and then some. To think that both men are leaving her behind, and that someone so dear to her as Duck would put himself in danger and not allow her to guard his back, would deny her the chance to finally share an interest and goal with him that was not forced into both their hands by centuries-old prophecies and demands… 

Minerva shakes her head and supplies lamely, “I wish I could help.”

“How come you didn’t sign up to go along?” Sarah asks, as if it is the most obvious query in the world. “Juno Divine was talkin’ about it down at the cafe ‘bout a week ago, said they were takin’ just about anybody who wanted to go.”

“It would be an honour to,” Minerva says. “It is certainly a cause that I could commit myself to, and if it is the battle for the Earth I was told it is then of course my natural inclination is to go, but–” she sighs. “Duck Newton has earned his freedom by finishing our quest, and I would not burden him further with my company. I have never seen him so passionate about crusading, and it would be selfish of me to join the fight if he wishes to go alone.”

“Juno’s goin’ with him.”

“If he wishes to go without me.”

Sarah stares at her for a long moment, her face scrunched into something bordering on displeasure but prevented by shock. When she sets her mug down on the table, it’s with a resolute clunk, and she rises and rushes out the door and back into the observation room with a fervency to her steps that Minerva has never before seen. She waves a quick hand to signal Minerva should follow her, but is otherwise silent until she’s swung herself into a spinning chair in front of an offside computer terminal and is pulling up an internet browser.

“What was the organization called?” she asks, and Minerva’s curious response sets off a quick sequence of browsing and clicking that Minerva struggles to follow. The host site for Seed The Future is emblazoned with photos of smiling people and bright green plant life, which she can only see for a glimpse before Sarah redirects to one of the series of tabs marked along the top. She reads out the text that appears on the otherwise white page in a short sigh: “Applications have been closed for this– alright.”

Undeterred, Sarah calls across the room to Jim, who tosses her a cordless phone. Another quick internet search brings up what must be information about the Forestry Service – Minerva recognises the symbol as the same on the metallic badge Duck wears to work. A melodic series of beeping noises rings out as Sarah dials a number, and she leans back in her chair as she puts the device to her ear. She folds one leg over the other, and her foot wiggles impatiently.

“Hey, Arnold, it’s Doctor Drake from up at the Telescope,” she says suddenly, and Minerva can hear the muffled cadence of a voice on the other line. “Yeah, yeah, I’m good. Hey, is Juno Divine around?”

Minerva’s stomach squirms uncomfortably, and she reaches gently for the phone; Sarah ducks away from her, even in the wake of a pleading call of her name.

“Hi, Juno! It’s Sarah Drake. Yeah. Not too bad, how ‘bout you?” She laughs at whatever the ranger replies, and there’s a faint ring of laughter on the other end. “Listen, I’m up at the Telescope with Minerva, you met her yet? Yeah, Duck’s– uh-huh. Dunno if _he’d_ say that, the dense–” 

Fond chuckling echoes through both sides of the conversation again, and Minerva can’t help the curious voice in the back of her head that craves a definition. She watches Sarah’s expression closely, trying to parse the implications behind the words.

“So that thing you’re doing down in Brazil, that’s starting up when, couple months' time? And you’re kind of runnin’ the show, aren’t’cha?” She pauses while Juno speaks. “Okay, but you’ve got some sway, right? ‘Cause here’s the thing: Minerva’s been gunnin’ to go down too, but nobody’s– yeah, for real. Listen, they’d be lucky to have her– right, you get me! She’s really about this, Juno, but nobody got her set up with an application and they’ve closed off the website for the season. Was wonderin' if you could do something about that.”

Sarah’s face scrunches in as the ranger on the end of the line starts speaking, and she turns slowly in her chair and rises to her feet, as if the words are making her antsy. She brushes by Minerva and begins pacing and nodding, interjecting only short “uh-huh”s until finally growing still and saying, “Sure, one sec.”

She presses one of the buttons with a musical beep, and suddenly Minerva can hear static and the echoing sound of movement and breathing on the line, magnified to fill the space. Jim glances over at them curiously, and then Sarah announces, “Alright, speakerphone engaged.”

“Hey, Minerva,” comes the voice of Park Ranger Juno Divine, and though they’ve only met twice and the sound is distorted, Minerva could swear the tone is fond. “How y’doin’?”

“Well, thank you,” she replies carefully.

“Alright, so here’s the thing: pullin’ strings in this company I just got hired onto is gonna be a bitch and a half to do. They’re desperate for people with experience and I don’t think they’re gonna be keen to lose me, but gettin’ you on last second isn’t gonna be the easiest thing.”

“It is not my intention to trouble you, Ranger Juno Divine,” Minerva says quickly, “If it would put your position in jeopardy then I–”

“Slow your roll, alright, take it easy. I just want you to sell me on it.”

“Sell?”

Sarah smiles at her, and clarifies, “Tell her why you want to go.”

“I–” Minerva stutters, sucks in a breath, and reorganizes herself. She was once a councillor of war, a paragon of dictation and grace. She knows how to argue a point and pitch a plan of action. She pushes aside the selfish argument of wanting to stay by the side of her dear friend, and instead begins, “I have been studying the situation that is unfolding in the Amazon Rainforest and have heard what tactics this organization enacts in the face of it, and I wish to lend my strength to the battle. The state of the planet and the health of the local wildlife depends on a resistive force, and the desecration of such important resources is a travesty. I have seen planets fall before to the thoughtless destruction by their citizens, and it would mean a great deal to me to help prevent such an event here.”

“Well,” Juno says incredulously, “Alright then. I wasn’t expectin’ a Greenpeace manifesto, but colour me convinced.” 

“I am also big and strong and can endure long hours of labour,” she adds in helpfully, which is perhaps a little too casual, but Minerva feels lightheaded on the realization that she may have bought herself a ticket to the quest. Juno and Sarah both laugh. Doubt comes careening in quickly, though, so Minerva adds, “I am not confident in how this works, Juno Divine, but is it possible to– is the reforestation effort done across multiple areas?”

“There’s a bunch of different organizations that do volunteer work down there, yeah,” Juno says slowly, “But I’m only workin’ the one. Why do you ask?”

“I do not think– I don’t want to impose on Duck Newton. If I can be assigned to a different faction of the effort where he does not have to see me, I believe–”

“Hold up, did Duck tell you that?” Juno interrupts, and her tone is suddenly furious. Sarah sighs and gives Minerva a look that suggests she is no happier with the statement. “I’m gonna kick his ass, I swear to– he’s not your boss, Minerva, that’ll be me if all this goes well, and I want your brawn on my team.”

“No, that’s–”

“No offense,” Sarah adds, “But it’d probably be easier to stick with people you already know. You’ve done really well blending in, Minerva, but Brazil’s gonna be a whole different ball game.”

“Fuck it, I’m making sure this happens now. I’ve known that cretin since we were five years old, and like hell am I letting him off being a jackass to somebody who wants to help. Christ on a cracker–”

“Park Ranger Juno Divine,” Minerva says urgently, uneasy at the sudden threatening nature of the conversation, “Duck Newton has done nothing wrong. My requests are my own. I– you are the leader of this expedition. Please assign me wherever you see fit.” 

The pause is long, and awkward. Sarah keeps looking at her with something almost like pity, and Minerva draws her breath still and straightens her spine, determined to cover up the weakness of her words with at least an appearance of strength. Juno sighs on the other end, and finally relents. 

“Alright, I’ll give the lady in charge a call after my shift. I’m flyin’ out tomorrow, so I’ll probably have to email you when I get shit sorted. You got a passport, Minerva? They’re gonna want a shitload of legal documentation from you.” Sarah’s face falls, suddenly, and she curses under her breath.

“That may be problematic, Juno Divine. I have none of these things.”

“The kids at the Lodge…” Sarah says slowly, looking up at her, “Do they?”

It takes little time to travel back down the mountainside and across town to the Amnesty Lodge inside the tiny vehicle; Sarah turns the music up for the return trip and encourages Minerva to sing with her, in what she can only assume is an attempt to brighten her mood. Despite the distraction and quick pace, however, the realization of her decision starts building a frantic nervousness in Minerva’s chest. By the time they’ve pulled in front of her Earth housing, Minerva has only enough patience to knock her forehead to Sarah’s in a quick thank you and goodbye before rushing into the Lodge. She kicks off her shoes and shrugs her borrowed coat into the closet alongside the colourful assortment of others, and beelines towards the kitchen. Barclay leans to peek out of the window between the kitchen and dining room and gives her a curious look.

“Would you help me make a meal for Madeline Cobb?” she asks, watching one of his bushy eyebrows slowly creep up his hairline. He shrugs, and nods, ever acquiescing, and she hurries through the door and towards the sink to wash her shaking hands. 

When she turns, Barclay is holding a drying cloth out to her, and grabs her shoulder gently when she takes it. They’re nearly equal in stature, though she knows his sylph form to match her height better, and the concern in his eyes is less critical than Duck’s tends to be, but no less sincere.

“Just like… breathe for a sec,” he asks, and she does, if a little impatiently. “Is this an emergency?”

“It is urgent,” she insists, but he seems to relax anyway. Barclay gestures back at the countertop, where he had clearly been already assembling a collection of sandwiches; lines of bread are laid out, with various toppings piled upon them. 

“Mama was gonna get a turkey on rye anyway. Will that work for… whatever it is you need?”

“If I may help assemble it.” In truth, Minerva knows little about what constitutes fanciful food on Earth, or what sort of presentation would be most appropriate. Sandwiches do not seem as interesting as something like pizza might, but her sample source is limited, and she will trust Madeline Cobb’s dear friend if he believes thin meatlike product on divoted bread will be enough. Minerva helps him with the entire spread of sandwiches, despite her hurry, because she was raised to have manners. Once the food is plated, she dips into the refrigerator for a handful of fruit, and cuts up a potato as an accessory snack – Barclay gives her an amused grin, suggesting something about the choice is wrong, but he says nothing to stop her.

She takes the dish and a freshly-poured mug of coffee (Minerva cannot believe the popularity of this beverage) to the second floor, pauses at the entrance to steady her racing heart and reassess her offering, and then firmly knocks on the door.

“C’mon in,” Madeline calls, and Minerva finds her leaning back in her desk chair; her face grows bright in surprise and then crinkles in fondness as she realizes her visitor is not the head of the kitchen, but one of her tenants. She leans forward and waves her in. Minerva hurries forward to set the food and drink down, bowing deeply as she does so.

“It is wonderful to see you, Mama Cobb, I wished to–” she begins, and then catches her fumble as the human woman bursts into laughter. A creased hand reaches to touch her arm.

“That’s a new one. What’d’y’need, hon? Sit down already, I built all the chairs here, they’ll hold’ja.” Minerva swallows her mortification and folds into the nearest seat with one foot tucked up – for as well-built as they are, the furniture in the Lodge seldom accounts for her reflexive want to cross her legs. She watches the matriarch inspect her meal, and tries not to cringe at the chuckling she does when she discovers the slices of raw potato.

She waits until Madeline has actually bitten into her sandwich before beginning, “I have decided to travel to the Amazon and join the quest to protect the burning trees.”

Madeline immediately chokes, and fumbles for a second in keeping the food from escaping her mouth. She sets the sandwich down and holds the accompanying napkin to her mouth, squinting up at Minerva with watery eyes. A few moments of rushed chewing later, she asks, “Is that so?”

“I have spoken to Park Ranger Juno Divine, and she has promised me passage, but I require documentation,” Minerva continues, and Madeline suddenly seems much more at ease; she nods concedingly and reaches down into one of the side drawers of her desk.

“Probably ‘bout time we got you some fake IDs,” the Lodge owner says, slapping a notebook down on the desk and rooting around for a pen. She slides her food off to the side, but takes a long drink of her coffee. She pauses before writing anything, posed like the paintings of scholars that once lined the libraries of Five, and gives Minerva a long look. “You’re gonna be with Juno, hey? ‘Magine Duck’ll be keepin’ an eye on you too.”

“I am quite capable of taking care of myself,” Minerva says, a little indignant but mostly dodging the question, and Madeline chuckles.

“Ain't you I’m worried about.” She begins scribbling on the notepad, a script far more looping and connected than Minerva is used to seeing. It’s a far cry from the blocky text Duck writes in, or the sweeping lines of Leo’s handwriting. “You got a last name, Minerva?”

“There were no such things on Five.”

“Any preference?” Minerva shakes her head. She has only ever held noble titles that announced her purposes: Minerva, War Councillor, Herald of The Astral Mind, Chosen One. She enjoys the simplicity of the Earth designations far more, but is unsure that taking on the surnames of any of her closest companions would be acceptable. The sounds are still pleasant in her head: Minerva Tarkesian. Minerva Drake. Minerva Newton. “Alright, well, you can make one up, or we can slap mine on there.”

She nearly blushes at the idea. Tying together her own faults and history to the proud name the Lodge matriarch carries feels like wiping dung over ancient scriptures. But before she can argue, Madeline is already nodding to herself and saying, “‘Minerva Cobb’ has a good ring to it. We’ll pass you off as a cousin or half-sister or somethin’ if anyone asks.”

They go back and forth on several similar topics, though none are quite so unnerving. Madeline’s list grows long and detailed with questions of her relations (all deceased), her features (eyes of indiscernible colour, height they use a measuring tape to learn), and her age, which is resolved, after much debate about orbits and relativity, with, “Why don’t we use the day you showed up, hmm? Ain’t a birthday, but it’s an Earthday.”

The businesslike conversation eases around the edges into something more informal the longer they speak, which Minerva has noticed that conversation are wont to do in Kepler. They consume the potato slices together, and Madeline asks her about her day, about her reasons for wanting to fly across a large chunk of the planet to plant trees, about the sort of things she’ll need to know while there. Despite her best efforts to prevent it, it isn’t long before Minerva is faced with more questions about Duck Newton and her hesitance to be near him.

“This effort has captured my interest, but it seems to mean an incredible deal to him,” Minerva sighs, worn down by the imposing presence of the matriarch and her persuasiveness. “I do not want to be a… a burden upon him. I don’t want to mar the experience. If this is a quest he feels is his own, then having me there may… upset him.”

“Have you talked to him?”

Madeline is staring at her, arms folded and reclined into her chair, something rueful in her smile. They aren’t well acquainted with each other’s histories, but Minerva suspects given her long battle against the oppression of Locust Prime and her hosting of sylph refugees for decades, she has suffered a fair few hardships herself. Minerva hasn’t bothered with trying to work out the math, but knows herself older than most any of the humans she has met; the woman called Mama still somehow manages to feel more elderly and wise than Minerva has ever been. She looks away.

“Lemme tell you somethin’, Minerva,” the Lodge owner says gently, as the orange rays of the early-setting spring sun begin to seep into the window, “When you’re used to bein’ in charge, it’s real easy to forget that your assumptions ain’t always the right ones. And I think you might’ve gone and convinced yourself of things that ain’t real. Duck can be a bit surly, I know, but he cares about you, same as he does everyone else ‘round here. You tell’m this is important to you, he’ll understand.”

Minerva is silent, watching the trees outside the window sway gently in the breeze, lit with fiery light. The state of the forest – this one and the one far away, in South America – are important to Duck in a way she has only begun to grasp. He has always seen merit in the quiet woodlands, where she prefers the cacophony of a crowd. But they have a mutual interest in the preservation of the planet they now share, and Minerva cannot deny the part of her that so desperately wants to build a friendship out of the common ground. She has not spoken to Duck in months, and wonders whether he would even hear her out.

“I am afraid,” she admits in a breath, nearly too faint to be heard. 

“That’s alright.” Madeline shrugs. “Hasn’t stopped you before.” 

Minerva takes off at a run from the Lodge, a bright snow jacket thrown on and her boots hurriedly tied. She slips several times in the muddy earth, made soggy with rain and melted snow, but dares not slow her pace. The path to the entrance of the Monongahela National Forest is a familiar one; her lungs struggle for breath between the anxiety constricting against them and the speed with which she takes the hills. Her feet pound loudly against the pavement, and then the gravel, and then packed earth, and suddenly she’s standing in front of the ranger station, in perfect time to watch Duck Newton methodically closing up for the evening.

He glances at her, and seems unalarmed at her presence. 

“Hey, Minerva,” he says, at nearly the same moment she calls, “Hello, Duck Newton.”

Her shoulders are stiff, and one leg pulses restlessly. Minerva’ hands clench and unclench at her sides, lost for how to act. It has been so long since she was able to see him, and the impulse to touch him now that she’s tangibly sharing the same space is almost too strong to resist. He clomps towards her, zipping his coat and shoving his messy hair out of his eyes, and Minerva holds her breath, as if her stillness will keep their interaction pleasant and deter his ire. (It worked on her teachers when she trained at the temple, but Duck has never been so concerned with formality.) When he lifts a hand and carefully pats her arm, it takes everything Minerva has not to gasp in relief. 

He hardly has a second to question her behaviour before the floodgate collapses: “Duck Newton, I have spoken to Ranger Juno Divine and requested she assist me in joining the effort to save the burning trees. I have watched the news programs every night at the Amnesty Lodge and have found myself appalled by the destruction. I have very little knowledge of the plant life of the Earth, but I wish to help, Duck Newton, and I am here because I would– I am asking your permission to join the quest.”

The surprise on his face has her stomach sinking into her feet. Minerva heaves air into her lungs and wills her composure to remain.

“Sorry,” Duck says slowly, his forehead crinkling in what she has to assume is displeasure, “Why?”

“Because this is–” Minerva swallows her terror and raises her arms to gesture, as if she can haul her emotions out of the air and present them to him. She should stick to her pitch about the state of the planet, but her voice escapes her control, thick with the desperate need to have him understand how much she cares about and worries for him. “Duck Newton, I have been by your side for the entirety of our mission against Reconciliation, and I have realized over these past months that I have grown more than a little accustomed to your company. It– I would miss you if we were apart.” 

She nearly curses as the confession slips out, flinching back, and scrambles to recover: “This is not my entire reasoning, of course. I am comfortable in Kepler, and it has been a joy to be close to Leo Tarkesian and Doctor Sarah Drake, and to have gained so many friends here is a blessing I had never expected to experience. But, Duck Newton, I cannot sit idly knowing there is a great travesty happening to this planet. It would go against my nature, and my training, and my belief in the importance of doing what is right!” She slams one fist into the opposite palm, posing with as much thematic energy as she can manage. Duck stares up at her with the loveliest brown irises she has ever seen, something she wants to believe is a smile lifting one corner of his lips. Minerva swallows. “But I do not want to intrude.”

He studies her for far too long. Minerva can feel her confidence deflating, and readies an apology.

And then Duck touches her arm again, gently but firmly, as if he’s checking her tangibility. The exhale that escapes him is shaky, as though he’s filtering away her anxiety through his own bloodstream. She folds her own hand over his, squeezing, before she’s fully through out the motion, and he grins at her with a warmth she hasn’t seen since the apocalypse.

“Yeah, I mean, they’d– they’d probably kill for someone like you down there,” he says, and she nearly collapses at the welcoming words. The ridges of his fingers fit between hers perfectly; the heat of his palm radiates even through her jacket. “Cuttin’ it kinda close, though, aren’t you?”

“These are the benefits of having friends in the know, Wayne Newton!” she explains, pressing his grip closer, revelling in it. “Madeline Cobb has procured me false documents of identity so I may leave this country and enter another, and Ranger Juno Divine has promised to speed my application forward so I might join you both!”

His smile is warm enough to rival the single sun. The lingering worry in Minerva’s mind melts like the last icicles of spring, leaving only a reflective grin in its wake. 


End file.
